Ground Zero in the Reading Crisis

#CanonChat Founder and Educator Matt Ryan on Inspiring a New Generation of Readers

I’ve written a bit about the so-called reading crisis (see, for instance, here, here, and here). In many ways, schools represent ground zero in the crisis, and yet at this moment some educators are actively deprioritizing reading—especially books that might challenge students.

Long-time English teacher Matt Ryan thinks this is backwards and has actively worked to reverse the trend, advocating for classroom adoption of classic literature to engender a love of the canon and other great books.

To help with that effort, he founded #CanonChat, an open Twitter-based book club that shares these books with any and all who care to engage and discuss, deepening awareness of what students might love and providing conversations and resources to help teachers confidently bring these books into their classrooms.

In this interview, we talk about founding #CanonChat, what students need to fall in love with literature, and how #CanonChat has effected his own reading and teaching.

The one and only Matt Ryan.

You’ve been teaching high-school English in Massachusetts for over twenty-five years. At what point did you look at that experience and think, “I should start a book club on Twitter”? What was the gap you were trying to fill?

My motivation for starting #CanonChat was twofold: First, it was the height of the COVID epidemic and, looking back, I was likely trying to fill the space of something that had been lost during our lockdown. But the stronger motivating factor was a movement—led by English teachers—to replace classic texts in the classroom with newer works that seemed, almost exclusively, to be YA lit selections.

I found myself defending almost on a daily basis the necessity of teaching Shakespeare and The Odyssey and other works that generations of students have read. For a while, I was frequently using the #DefendTheCanon hashtag, hoping to encourage a small movement.

The #CanonChat reading list now runs to sixty-plus titles. In the early days, who actually showed up for these Tuesday-night conversations—other teachers? General readers? And how has the community changed as the list has grown?

To be sure, most of the participants were (and continue to be) teachers. But we’ve also attracted people who just love to read good books. Many of the participants have come and gone (and come back), but such is the nature of book clubs. We have a small core group that reads every book and we usually pick up an additional participant depending on the titles.

It’s my hope that even if teachers aren’t actively participating in the chats, I hope that they are watching our selections and conversations and perhaps encouraged to teach some of these texts.

#CanonChat Website.

Your list includes Beowulf and Hamlet but also Pedro Páramo, Kawabata’s Snow Country, Tayeb Salih’s Season of Migration to the North, and Tagore’s Gitanjali. That’s a much wider net than most people mean when they talk about “the canon.” How do you think about what qualifies?

The wider net was certainly deliberate. I think too many people dismiss the literary canon as a list of dead white men. Sure, there are a bunch of those (and they’ve written some brilliant stuff), but there are many works of literature by authors from diverse backgrounds.

There isn’t a metric or formula we use for selecting books. In fact, on our website, I write that we read a variety of books, old and new, from different countries. The only nonnegotiable aspect is that they must be great.

You’ve also included more recent work—Percival Everett’s James, Phil Klay’s Redeployment, Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These. At what point does a book become canonical rather than just good? Is there a threshold, or is it more of a bet?

Admittedly, we’re stretching the definition of the term “canonical” with selections like these. But if the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame can induct Missy Elliott and Dolly Parton, we can certainly choose James and Small Things Like These!

When it comes to newer selections like the ones you mention, we generally will use major literary awards as a criterion. James won the Pulitzer and National Book Award, Redeployment won the National Book Award, and Small Things Like These was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. But are these texts canonical at this time? No. Might they become canonical? Very possibly. As to what point a text becomes canonical, it’s difficult to say. There isn’t a formula.

Which selection surprised the group the most—either a book everyone expected to love and didn’t, or one vastly exceeded expectations?

I shared this question with some of the core members of our group, and I was excited to hear their responses. The consensus was that our big summer reads are the ones that most surprised the group. We began a tradition of reading a big book over the course of the summer months (a more leisurely time for teachers), one of the epic works that are thought to be the best of the best. These selection are Joyce’s Ulysses (2022), Don Quixote (2023), War and Peace (2024), Moby-Dick (2025) and East of Eden (2026).

First edition of Ulysses, 1922. Photo by Geoffrey Barker.

#CanonChat member Allyson White observed that these books are “the touchstones of the group.” And the act of slow-reading them and meeting together regularly as we work our way through the books—as opposed to meeting after the books have been read—has made us better readers. Annebet Pettit, another group member, shared that she “realized [#CanonChat] could be a place not just to talk about books, but to learn how to read better.”

But since you asked about a specific title, I’ll name Ulysses. Personally, the book daunted me, and I know that I wouldn’t have read it without the support of the group. And while we all didn’t love it (I did!), we all found great value in reading a work many consider to be the greatest of the twentieth century.

Carl Rosin shared his experience of reading Joyce’s novel, and it framed what we are doing in #CanonChat more clearly:

[Ulysses] took a lot—not only the scholarly assistance but also just the effort of reading—and was rewarding in the way that tackling something monumental feels rewarding, which seems like a theme for the whole project of reading “the canon.” As I tell my students, “You can do hard things”; we adult readers benefit from that same philosophical approach to intellectual work.

I couldn’t agree more. And I would add that if we as readers and teachers aren’t willing to do the hard work, how can we expect young people to do it?

You provide helpful resources for each selection—critical essays, Paris Review interviews, academic articles. How much of that apparatus do participants actually engage with, and does it change the quality of the conversation when they do?

Good question! Truthfully, I’m not really sure. I’ve had a few folks reach out and thank me for collecting the resources. I’m especially hopeful that these resources might find their way to teachers and encourage them to teach some of these books.

Often, I will use the resources when writing questions for our chats. This can encourage the participants to at least peak at some of the material that I’ve shared. The podcasts seem to be the most popular and observations made on these particular episodes have informed our discussions.

It’s clear that the participants also do their own research. For our current selection, Our Brilliant Friend, one member researched Italian dialect and its history and shared with the group. Her findings helped me to understand an aspect of the novel that I previously hadn’t.

As an educator, you’ve been critical of the move by the National Council of Teachers of English to “decenter” book reading (which seems utterly bonkers, if not cultural suicide). What’s the strongest version of the argument you’re opposing—and where does it go wrong?

The strongest version of NCTE’s argument is a claim that is undeniably true: Students now live in a world that bombards them with messages on digital screens and we have to acknowledge this new reality. They argue that “decentering” book reading is not an attack on literature but rather an attempt to correct an outdated hierarchy that “valorizes” the written word over other literacies students need to participate in contemporary culture.

I’d argue that this is precisely why books must be centered. The digital world doesn’t make sustained reading obsolete; it makes it indispensable. Reading full-length works is the only literacy practice that builds skills students need: stamina, inference, and the ability to follow complex threads of meaning. These aren’t luxuries or skills meant only for English majors. These are the very moves that will allow students to make sense of the algorithmically‑driven content that NCTE rightly worries about.

We also can’t ignore that books, especially good books, offer something digital media rarely does: the chance to develop theory of mind. Students inhabit another mind for hundreds of pages, grapple with ambiguity, and follow a character or argument across time. This kind of sustained engagement is the foundation of empathy, critical thinking, and intellectual independence.

Centering books is not a nostalgic defense of print for its own sake. The NCTE should recognize that the written word remains the most powerful tool for developing the very competencies NCTE claims to value: critical reading, thoughtful communication, and the ability to participate meaningfully in civic life. If we want students to analyze media power structures, detect misinformation, and express themselves with clarity and nuance, they need the habits of mind that come from reading challenging, beautiful, enduring texts.

There’s a strong push in English education to let students choose their own books instead of reading a shared text. You’ve pushed back, saying whole-class reading with teacher modeling is more effective. How does that play out in your classroom, and what persuaded you that it matters? Is there documented evidence it works better?

I like this question because I always wonder if we would take the same approach in other subject areas? Do we offer math students the opportunity to choose only the types of problems they enjoy or the operations they prefer? Do history teachers ask students to learn only about the events or figures in history that appeal to them? I do believe that those who promote student-choice reading have good intentions. And the approach seems to make sense: students are more likely to read about things that interest them.

But there are flaws here. One, many students struggle with the actual act of reading. Asking them to work their way through a book on their own might result in the practicing of bad habits. Furthermore, how is a student to know what they might enjoy if they aren’t exposed to it in the first place? One way to develop interest is to share a wide variety of examples with them. I hold with Flannery O’Connor when she writes the following:

The high-school English teacher will be fulfilling his responsibility if he furnishes the student a guided opportunity, through the best writing of the past, to come, in time, to an understanding of the best writing of the present. . . . And if the student finds that this is not to his taste? Well, that is regrettable. Most regrettable. His taste should not be consulted; it is being formed.

It sounds a bit harsh, but it’s true.

Flannery O’Connor. Photo by Floyd Jillson, Library of Congress.

Regarding documented evidence, I admit I’m not as well-versed in research as other educators. But I know that Meredith and David Liben have argued that the single biggest predictor of success in college is the ability to read complex texts independently and proficiently. They go on to say that the way to expose kids to complex texts is for them to read complex texts on a regular basis. And most students aren’t going to voluntarily choose to read complex texts, so teachers have to model close reading and the best way to do this is with whole-class texts.

After twenty-five years in the classroom, what’s actually changed about how students read—not the headlines about screens and attention spans, but what you see when you hand a junior a novel today versus in 2000?

After twenty‑five years, the biggest change isn’t that students “won’t read.” I’ve heard this too often. It’s that far fewer of them arrive with the reading experience of past students. And so, books that earlier students didn’t consider difficult now pose a much greater challenge for today’s students. But I’ve found that students are still fully capable of deep long-form reading when they’re given structure, books worth reading, and a teacher that holds them accountable for reading.

This last part is important. Many teachers recoil at the idea of reading quizzes, arguing that the motivation for reading should be intrinsic. What I’ve found again and again is that forcing (I use this word deliberately) students to read actually awakens them to the realization that they enjoy reading. And then, the motivations become intrinsic.

You’ve watched the reading crisis develop in real time from inside a classroom. Beyond diagnosis, what do you think the actual solution looks like—at the school level, the curriculum level, wherever you think the leverage is?

The solution isn’t flashy. It’s a coherent curriculum built around rich shared books, teachers modeling the skill of reading and reading alongside students, and a school culture that insists that students actually read. Pair the classics with contemporary texts that speak to them, hold students accountable for the work, and support the teachers who make it happen. If we truly care about young people, we’ll do this for them. We must.

One thing that stands out on your reading list is that you’ve scheduled books that are in direct conversation with each other. Literature is a lot of things, but included in that is a lengthy argument across centuries. What happens in the group when people encounter a book alongside the book that talks back to it?

When readers encounter a book alongside one that it is in direct conversation with, the chat shifts from treating literature as a collection of stand-alone classics to seeing it as a long, lively argument about truth, beauty, and goodness. One text often illuminates new dimensions in the other; tensions and ultimatelyricher meanings that only emerge when two works sit with each other.

I know I find it exciting when I see authors doing the very thing #CanonChat celebrates: examining and elevating the stories we inherit. The pairings make it clear that the canon isn’t a fixed list or a museum shelf; it’s alive, expanding, and still being written. Once people experience that, they start reading everything as part of a vibrant, ongoing conversation.

Of everything you’ve read for #CanonChat, what’s the book that changed you most as a reader?

Ulysses changed me more than anything else we’ve read. I was genuinely afraid of this book; its reputation precedes it, and not always in reassuring ways. I wasn’t sure I was up to the challenge. But humbling myself, being willing to be vulnerable with the group, sharing half‑formed ideas, and listening closely to others transformed the experience. It gave me more confidence as a reader.

And the confidence it gave me has stayed. After finishing Ulysses, I even took a swing at Finnegans Wake. I didn’t make it far (not even close), but the fact that I tried at all is the real change. That book expanded my sense of what I can attempt as a reader, and that’s a gift I didn’t expect to receive.

You’ve now read more than sixty books in community over several years, many of which you might not have picked up otherwise. Has running #CanonChat changed you as a reader? Has it changed what you teach?

I’ve unquestionably read books I never would have picked up on my own! Some group selections opened doors I didn’t even know were there. I’d always assumed Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was strictly for adolescents; I’d never encountered Gitanjali or Primo Levi; Pedro Páramo stunned me; Bless Me, Ultima fascinated me.

And here’s the humbling part: I consider myself well‑read with a solid foundation, yet I’m still discovering writers I’d never heard of. I only recently stumbled onto Tim Winton. How have I lived almost half a century without knowing he existed? That sense of surprise has become one of the great gifts of #CanonChat.

Lewis Carrol, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass.

I’m not sure the project has changed what I teach so much as how I teach. I’ve absolutely stolen insights from the group, sharp observations and unexpected interpretations, and brought them straight into the classroom. But more than that, the community has made me a more open, more attentive teacher. Watching thoughtful readers approach a text from angles I’d never considered has reminded me to expect the same from my students: that they will see things I don’t, that literature is bigger than any one person’s reading, and that my job is to celebrate that richness.

There’s a version of the canon debate that’s really about whether difficult, old, demanding books are still worth the effort—whether the payoff justifies what you’re asking of readers and students. After twenty-five years of teaching and sixty-plus selections for #CanonChat, what is the payoff? What does a person get from this that they can’t get any other way?

Yes, it’s work! But the payoff is absolutely worth it. When you see a young person commit to reading difficult, demanding, time‑tested books, it’s rewarding. I try to remind them often that they’re encountering something greater than themselves, something that links us across centuries and cultures.

These books are some of the best humanity has managed to think, imagine, and articulate. They offer moments of beauty that stop us short, unsettle us, awe us. It really is a privilege to read great works.

And the deeper truth is that reading changes us. With every book I’ve read, I’ve walked away with a larger interior life and a sharper sense of myself and others. That’s the payoff. And ultimately, it’s not just that these books are worth the work; it’s that the work (and it’s okay to say that it is work) is part of what makes us capable of receiving what they have to give.

Final question. You can invite any three authors—living or dead—for a long meal. Neither time nor language is an obstacle. Who do you invite, and what does the conversation sound like?

I love this question. It feels impossible to choose only three without leaving out someone essential, but I’d start with Jane Austen. I’d love to see her reaction to the fame she enjoys today, how her wit would register the global devotion she inspires. I know she’d have a perfectly timed, perfectly barbed observation about it. I’d also invite Toni Morrison. We have her interviews and essays, but her mind was so brilliant, and she was so generous in her exploration of the human experience, that I’d want to hear her think aloud in real time. And my third guest would be Herman Melville, whose Moby-Dick still feels startlingly ahead of its time, as if he were writing toward readers who wouldn’t exist for another century.

Jane Austen, Toni Morrison, and Herman Melville. Credits: Cassandra Austen, Bernard Gotfryd, and Joseph O. Eaton.

Imagine this conversation! Austen’s irony, Morrison’s moral gravity, Melville’s metaphysical ambition. Incredible! Honestly, I’d mostly listen and be grateful to sit at this table.

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